Portrait of Josh Dafoe

Josh Dafoe

NSF Graduate Research Fellow

PhD Student @ Michigan Tech

About

Hi! I am Josh Dafoe, a second-year PhD student in computer science at Michigan Tech and an NSF Graduate Research Fellow.

I received my bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from Michigan Tech in 2025. My current research focuses on secure programmable flash storage and formally verifiable agentic software engineering.

News

  • I was awarded the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.

  • Gave a guest lecture on vehicle cybersecurity for SAT4520: Machine Learning for Security.

  • Presented our paper “Hardware-assisted Secure Decentralized Cloud Storage via Self-audit and Self-repair” at SecureComm 2025.

  • I began my PhD at Michigan Tech.

  • Graduated from Michigan Tech with a B.S. in Mathematics and Computer Science.

  • Received an honorable mention from the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program.

  • Our paper “Enabling Per-file Data Recovery from Ransomware Attacks via File System Forensics and Flash Translation Layer Data Extraction” was published in Springer Nature's journal Cybersecurity.

  • I presented our paper “Hardware-assisted Runtime In-vehicle ECU Firmware Self-attestation and Self-repair” at SmartSP 2024, where it received the Best Paper Award (Top 2.9%).

  • Won first place in the undergraduate category at Michigan Tech's Computing[AI] Showcase poster competition.

  • Our paper “Enabling Real-Time Restoration of Compromised ECU Firmware in Connected and Autonomous Vehicles” was presented at SmartSP 2023.

  • I presented our research on flash-memory-based ransomware recovery at the Flash Memory Summit.

  • Awarded a Michigan Tech Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship.

  • Joined the Michigan Tech Security and Privacy Lab as an undergraduate research assistant.